Preview | ANDY GRAMMER

Tickets: $12 advance ($14 day of show) at the club and ticketweb.com, or charge by phone 216-321-5588.

On his first headlining tour, Andy Grammer is performing at venues from coast to coast.

A couple of years ago, though, he was out on the street. This guitar-playing troubadour got his start busking on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, Calif.

"It was really important to my development," Grammer, 28, said by phone last week from a tour stop in Salt Lake City.

"On a typical day, I would wake up about 8 a.m., pile all my stuff into my mom's minivan -- my guitar, my amp, CDs to sell, a table and a rug -- drive it down to the street and unload it all. I'd wait until about 12, then play for two hours. You could only play in two-hour intervals, so then I would move it all somewhere else. I'd usually play until 10 at night.

"It was a serious hustle. But I became a much better songwriter out there. It showed me which songs people liked and which ones they didn't like."

It also led to a record deal after Grammer's future manager caught one of his energetic performances.

His self-titled debut, a confident album of breezy pop-rock tunes, came out in June. It features the feel-good hit "Keep Your Head Up," which dates back to Grammer's street-performer days. Actor Rainn Wilson from "The Office" makes a cameo in the video.

"Basically, the idea of that song is that it's still good to hang out, even if you're broke," Grammer said.

"Times are hard right now. So I think that's something that people can connect to. Even if things are terrible, you can still smile about it."

Grammer was born in California and raised in New York. He later returned to the West Coast to attend California State University Northridge, where he earned a degree in music-industry studies.

Music runs in Grammer's family. His father, Red Grammer, used to play with the Limeliters folk trio before he became a popular draw on the children's-music circuit.

"I owe a lot to him," Grammer said.

"He was totally encouraging. I think I was 15 the first time I wrote a good song. He brought me into the studio to record it, in a cheap way, just so I could hear what it sounded like. It was a song called 'Doorstep' that no one will ever hear. Ever!"

Up next for Grammer? A live EP with new material and reworked versions of songs from his album.

He feels ready for anything, thank to his stint on the street.

"You gain a level of fearlessness, performing when no one's there to see you," Grammer said.

"You either create something there on the street, or nothing happens. It's brutal. But if you go through that for two or three years, it really toughens you up.

"I take a lot of pride in my live show now, because of my street performing."

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